“There! Do you know I felt that you would? I told Mrs. Lee so. Isn’t that remarkable?”
“Did you? Did you? My dear Mrs. Mearely! But don’t you yourself consider that it is a Roseborough matter?”
“I do. Yes—I do.” Her tone was judicial. “However, I won’t say anything more to Mrs. Lee about that. I will trust it all to your tact and sympathy, when you see her this evening, here. Won’t that be best?” Sweetly.
“Oh, entirely! Oh, yes! Oh, certainly! Leave it absolutely in my hands. Dear Mrs. Lee! I always know exactly how to manage her. In fact, my dear Mrs. Mearely, I sometimes say that that is my one great gift; (Will you be quiet, Central?)—er—my one great gift is managing people, especially in emergencies.”
“All Roseborough admits that, Mrs. Witherby. It is a wonderful gift; but not your only one, I’m sure. So we can rely on you this afternoon to carry the breakfast invitation to those of our dear friends who have no telephones? That means, chiefly, the Gleasons, the Montereys, and the Pelham-Hews.”
“And the MacMillans, and the Grahams.”
“Yes, and the Wattses. If only they all had telephones, I could spare you the trouble. Really they ought to have them put in, for their friends’ sakes.”
“Ah! now, there I don’t agree with you! No, I really do not agree. The telephone is a little luxury, like electric lights—and—er—modern plumbing—to which those are entitled who can afford them, and whose heads will not be turned by possessing them. Like ourselves, dear Mrs. Mearely. But what is permissible luxury in one home is wicked extravagance in another. (Maria Potts! If you say ‘Waiting’ to me again while I am talking, I shall report you!) If persons in the MacMillans’ straitened circumstances were to have a telephone put in, I think all Roseborough would resent it. I am convinced that I should! And when one knows—as we all do—that the Gleasons can hardly manage to keep their boy at Charleroy College! As for the Pelham-Hews, with their small income and those seven simpering girls on their hands! Well, I, for one, dare not imagine what all Roseborough would say if we heard, to-morrow, that they were piping water to the second floor—and wallowing in enamelled tubs! No, my dear Mrs. Mearely. In the Witherby home a stationary bath-tub is a refinement; in the Pelham-Hew home it would be an immorality.”
It was at this point that Miss Potts deliberately disconnected “Roseborough one-eight” from “Roseborough two-one” and turned deaf ears to the latter’s indignant demand for “the manager at Trenton.”
Rosamond came to the door sill of the living-room again and drew a deep breath of the breeze-stirred fragrance which enveloped Villa Rose on this perfect midsummer morning. She sighed.